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2 Replies to “DiveIntoMark Opts-Out”

Calling Mark’s departure inspiring is an insult to the work that he did. His departure shows level of disrespect to both the work he built on and the work built on him – a level of disrespect that is more comparable to defacing public artwork than the “taking his ball home” analogy used when whytheluckystiff departed.

Does this anger personify a certain sense of entitlement? Absolutely. Can you imagine a world where Sun Tzu decided “actually, nevermind, I’m going to destroy that book because I’m moody”? And imagine how we’d condemn any culture that supported an author that made that decision.

My favorite artists are no longer regularly releasing work – and haven’t for so long that their work is not longer easy to find. I’m still a fan. I still enjoy experiencing their work. They’re doing other things now. Many outside of the music business.

Every couple of years a high-profile member of the online community steps away without a trace. It’s always surprising. But not unique to our world. I believe the history is littered with people that fully stepped away from their profession after a achieving a measure of success. Nothing wrong with that. Especially if it leads to greater personal satisfaction.

Requiring anyone to be bound by work no longer representative of who they want to be and what they want to be known for is career imprisonment. This is why I applaud his decision. He’s knew he had to leave – and he did. That’s a challenging decision to arrive at and make.

Thankfully, Mark released a significant percentage of his work under an open license (CC-BY I believe). So, anyone is welcome to continue to carry the torch that Mark no-longer wants to carry. Just like all those that adopted _why’s projects.
(I still use Hpricot everyday). To me – that’s another of the responsible, forward-thinking, inspiring things Mark did.

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